Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development in China

The field corporate social responsibility (CSR) is extensively discussed in the specialized literature. However, the focus is generally on the developed countries, even if the need of CSR is more pronounced in the developing ones, due to the gaps in social, economic and environmental aspects. CSR is founded on the idea that corporations are in close relationship with the economic, environmental cultural and social systems, because business activities influence and are influenced by them. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the CSR activities developed by companies present in China (domestic and foreign) in close connection with the main challenges to the sustainable development of this country. To achieve this objective, the research methods used consisted in an investigation of the specialized literature and in an analysis of secondary data. The results show that the CSR activities in China have grown steadily over the past decade, the government's measures being a key driver. In this context, most of the state-owned companies have embraced CSR practices. However, environmental performance, labour practices, transparency and ethical behaviour are viewed as the most pressing CSR issues for businesses in China over the next decade. Therefore, CSR implementation needs both the managers' ethical awareness and the change of institutional framework. Meanwhile, to respond to the sustainable development issues, the companies would also need to embrace the so-called CSR Innovation, through which they could take the social, economic and environmental problems as a source for innovating new businesses.